In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [53]
Kissel, at Center Stage, struggled to find a match the way drunks invariably do, going through pocket after pocket after pocket; fumblingly, maddeningly, and finding only pencil stubs and brass keys. It seemed to go on forever until finally someone—this point later was also much in dispute; no one quite knew who actually handed him the book of matches—solved the problem. Kissel took the book of matches in hand, paused for a moment, and belched, a deep, round, satisfying, shuddering burp of the sort that can only come from a vast internal lake of green beer. The crowd applauded and shifted impatiently, all eyes riveted on the dull black menace that stood with such dignity in the center of the concrete roadway.
Finally Kissel struck a match, which instantly went out. He struck another. It too flickered and died. Another and another. There was, I might add, a slight breeze which puffed fitfully from the Northwest. The audience grew restive, but no one dared leave. In fact, more viewers of this historic event were arriving by the minute. Kissel, as is so often the case with the massive drunk, seemed totally unaware of the drama he was creating and with maniacal intensity struggled with his match-book, lighting match after match. Suddenly, out of the crowd, a kid darted, an experienced detonator of high explosives of all sorts, who shoved into Kissel’s palsied hand a stick of briskly smoldering punk. The kid, according to witnesses who testified later, uttered one word: “Here,” then turned, and scurried back into the throng and into the pages of local Folk history forever.
Kissel, thinking at first he had been given a cigar, gazed at it numbly for a moment or two and then dimly perceived that here was the means of lighting the fuse of the colossal black Dago Bomb.
The fuse on this type of insanity is of the coated variety, and in this case was about three inches long, a black, stiff, powder-impregnated length of fiber. It doesn’t take much to light them, and once lit, the die is cast. Kissel shuffled forward, punk in hand, and made several futile passes at the fuse, the magnificent bomb remaining aloof and cool throughout. With each pass the crowd retreated, and then, with the inevitability of Greek drama, in the muttering silence the telltale hiss sounded forth clear and unmistakable. The fuse was lit!
Immediately the assemblage rolled back in a mighty wave, turned and waited while Kissel continued to attempt to light the fuse, totally unaware that time was growing short. Someone called out:
“Kissel! Hey Kissel, for God’s sake, it’s lit!”
Kissel raised his head questioningly and said:
“What’s lit?”
The ominous hiss continued and then, suddenly and without warning, stopped. Occasionally these fuses are tricky, and extremely dangerous. They have been known to lie dormant like this for hours, seemingly extinguished for no good cause. Obviously this black menace was one of the treacherous.
Kissel returned to his fight, again touching punk to fuse. And this time the fuse, in its unpredictable way, hissed frantically. Kissel, at last seeing that his monster was lit, attempted his getaway. He reeled in a half-circle, befuddled, trailing punk smoke behind him and then, staggering forward, knocked the black monster over on its side—hissing fiercely with only seconds remaining!
The crowd, seeing this catastrophe unreeling before its eyes, to a man hit the dirt. Those on the fringes dove into snowball bushes; others simply moaned piteously and dug in. It was good training, as events turned out, for later years.
The Dago Bomb lay on its side, its ugly snout pointing toward the houses which lay across the lawns 200 feet or so away. Cooler members of the mob shouted to those in the houses. “Look out, it’s coming! Close your windows!” The fuse sputtered on.
Kissel himself, now aware of the nature of the rapidly approaching catastrophe, made a futile but certainly courageous attempt to right the bomb. Someone yelled:
“Get down, Kissel, you’ll get killed!”
Kissel fell over backward and lay flattened